Healthy Smiles Family Dental

Tooth extractions are ideally rare, but when they are necessary, we at Healthy Smiles Family Dental see our patients through safely. Many adolescents need to have their wisdom teeth removed to prevent alignment problems, and extractions are sometimes done on teeth with pulp infections after root canal treatment has proven unsuccessful. But in emergency situations, tooth extractions may not be preplanned, which is why we want our patients to be familiar with how to prevent a dry socket. A simple extraction is one in which the tooth is wiggled loose until it can be pulled out with pliers. A complex extraction is one requiring an incision to be made into the gum tissue. Dry sockets are likelier to result from complex extractions. When a tooth is removed, a blood clot ordinarily forms to seal off the socket, protecting it from pathogens and keeping moisture locked inside. A clot may have more difficulty forming over a surgical incision, or it may come loose more easily. Prior to the extrac...

Tooth extractions are ideally rare, but when they are necessary, we at Healthy Smiles Family Dental see our patients through safely. Many adolescents need to have their wisdom teeth removed to prevent alignment problems, and extractions are sometimes done on teeth with pulp infections after root canal treatment has proven unsuccessful. But in emergency situations, tooth extractions may not be preplanned, which is why we want our patients to be familiar with how to prevent a dry socket. A simple extraction is one in which the tooth is wiggled loose until it can be pulled out with pliers. A complex extraction is one requiring an incision to be made into the gum tissue. Dry sockets are likelier to result from complex extractions. When a tooth is removed, a blood clot ordinarily forms to seal off the socket, protecting it from pathogens and keeping moisture locked inside. A clot may have more difficulty forming over a surgical incision, or it may come loose more easily. Prior to the extrac...

Dental emergencies happen every day. You’re out playing sports with your friends, you trip and fall, or experience some kind of facial trauma. Your mouth or teeth are in incredible pain, but it's past all regular business hours. Dr. Na Xu, D.D.S. and Dr. Mark Thomas D.M.D. of Healthy Smiles Family Dental in Salem, Oregon are available for dental emergencies.   When suffering a dental emergency, get in contact with us immediately. If for some reason you can’t reach our office, consider going to your local emergency room. There are a few traditional dental emergencies that we can help you with.   -Inexplicable toothache: rinse your mouth thoroughly to make sure there is nothing pressed up against or stuck between the tooth and an adjacent tooth. If this doesn’t help, call us. -Broken or chipped tooth: Rinse out your mouth and try to save as many pieces of the tooth as possible. Apply icepacks in 15-minute cycles to keep the swelling down while on your way to your emergency appointmen...

Cracking a tooth is a dental emergency. If this happens to one of our patients, they should call us at Healthy Smiles Family Dental in Salem unless they also have series facial lacerations, in which case they should go to an emergency room. The good news is that we can usually save cracked teeth, but we thought our patients would be calmer if they knew ahead of time what usually happens. Our molars distribute bite force over their wide surfaces. Other teeth are likelier to crack or be pushed outward if used for chewing, while molars can withstand incredible force. But they are also the likeliest teeth to crack or chip a cuspid. A patient should swish salt water in their mouth if they have a dental emergency and should cover a broken tooth with orthodontic wax if they have any available. If not, sugar-free gum will do. The smallest cracks, called craze lines, can be fixed with bonding or covered with a veneer. When a larger part of a tooth chips off, it may be fixable with a partial cro...

Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder that occurs when a person’s breathing is interrupted during sleep and when untreated breathing stops repeatedly. When this occurs the brain and rest of the body are being deprived of oxygen. The cause of sleep apnea is usually blockage in the back of the throat where soft tissue collapses. There is a greater risk to develop sleep apnea if you are male, overweight, and history of it in your family. Side effects are high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and depression. If you snore loudly and wake up feeling tired after a long night sleep regularly, these may be signs of sleep apnea. A lifestyle change that helps cure sleep apnea is weight loss. Medical alternatives include different devices to be worn while you sleep to prevent blockage of the airways and in more severe cases surgery can be done to help with sleep apnea. For questions about sleep apnea and possible solutions, give us a call at Healthy Smiles. To learn about our services provided at ou...

Cavities are permanent damage done to teeth that develop into small openings or holes on the hard surfaces of teeth. Cavities can develop by drinking too many sugary drinks and consuming too many sweets and other sugary snacks. Not brushing your teeth thoroughly enough is a telltale sign there is bacteria building up and cavities are forming. For cavity prevention there are a few ways to ensure your teeth are healthy and clean. Using toothpaste and brushing all areas of your teeth along with rinsing with fluoride makes for a good combination of healthy teeth. At Healthy Smiles we know that it’s hard to avoid soda and other sugary drinks but drinking water and other alternatives like tea or milk will go a long way in preventing cavities. Putting healthier things in your body make for healthier and stronger teeth. If patients experience any toothaches, tooth sensitivity, or pain when you bite down, there may be a cavity that needs to be filled and we can do that here at Healthy Smiles. ...

You’re probably aware that wisdom tooth extractions are followed by swelling. We work closely with patients at Healthy Smiles Family Dental to ensure that their recoveries go as smoothly as possible, but it’s true that swelling is almost inevitable. We want to reassure patients that this is normally not a problem and to provide them with information they need to protect themselves in case something does go wrong. When a tooth is removed, the bone at the base of the socket is briefly exposed before the blood clots and seals it off. Inflammation is an additional immune defense against the spread of outside pathogens, but it usually isn’t necessary. For the first few days after an extraction, patients should attempt to limit swelling by applying cold packs to their jaws. They should apply the cold pack for fifteen minutes at a time, with fifteen minutes in between applications. Swelling is usually proportional to the complexity of an extraction, with incisions resulting in more swelling t...